A 2018 graduate of Nicholls State University dedicates her time researching the trends on domestic violence.

Jennifer Richard, who is from Thibodaux, started her research for the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement. She then reported the information to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Police Social Services. The research was a part of her internship for a sociology class.

When Richard started her research, she said she grew passionate about helping domestic violence victims, and that’s when she connected with someone who was a part of the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement.

“First, it was three years worth of data, from 2013 to 2015, and they gave me every single parish’s domestic violence data related information,” Richard said.

Richard said she found analyzing the data important because it has not been reviewed in the past.

Richard worked with Valerie Martinez-Jordan to help get a law changed.

Starting in January 2019, all state agencies in Louisiana must remove firearms from people who have committed certain domestic violence crimes.

The law only applies to people who have certain convictions.

“In a domestic-related issue, the heat is intense, everything is intense, so preventing is something that we could be a part of,” Richard said.

Richard started analyzing data from 2016 and 2017, and she said her results showed shocking statistics about the toll domestic violence has on people.

“It wasn’t just domestic violence in a fighting sense; you see the rise of everything going up. The amount of children being murdered went up so insane,” Richard said.

According to Richard, domestic violence is often thought of as husbands murdering wives.

“People mostly think that it would be a husband who was the highest on the killing rate; it was actually boyfriends,” Richard said.

Richard said she wants to bring more awareness to domestic violence.

“We have people dying more here annually in this state because of domestic homicides and domestic related murders than you see of mass shootings on TV, but nobody talks about it,” Richard said.